Better and Better
by Mindy35
Summary: GALEX. Set early s3. Follow-up to "Blind". Gene and Alex are both better together.


Rating: M, sexy stuff  
Disclaimer: You know whose  
Spoilers: through to 3.01  
Pairing: Gene/Alex forever  
Summary: Set early s3, following the shooting but preceding the worst of their estrangement. Gene and Alex are both better together.  
A/N: This story is linked with my previous story, "Blind", though you don't have to have read that one to understand this one. These two stories will ultimately make up a mini-trilogy though, the last part of which will be up shortly. Working within canon, they attempt to weave a physical and emotional relationship between Gene and Alex from the end of s2 through to the end of s3.

* * *

She hadn't considered how he'd react to her scar.

He knew it was there. He put it there.

She still remembers the white-hot, red-cold agony that halted her whole being when his bullet penetrated her gut. Given the choice between a bullet in the head and bullet in the belly, she'd choose the former. Every time. The former dealt instant unconsciousness and a piercing headache that lasted for – what was for her – over a year. The second was far, far worse. An utterly incomprehensible level of pain.

He'd put his hands over the entry wound as she lay in that idyllic courtyard. He'd yelled at Shaz to call an ambulance. At Ray and Chris to do something, anything. His men just stood there, staring down at her, mute and at a loss. The stone was chilly beneath her back, his hands like knives as he pushed them mercilessly into the hole that was oozing blood from her body. She'd cried out, cursed through her teeth. Right before she lost consciousness again. He'd been with her in the ambulance. She remembered that much. But not much more. She was in and out. And then – with one resoundingly demanding slap – in again. Thrust back into his world, planted back at his side.

Almost the second he got her up out of her bed and alone in that garage, Gene was checking her over. Investigating the damage. Inspecting the wound that over time became nothing more than a raised, puckered scar. He'd given her whiskey for the pain, held her hand as he lifted her to her feet. His head had bowed, his voice stammered and feet shifted as he muttered the closest thing to an apology she figured she'd ever get. It touched her nonetheless. Like so much about this obstinate, exasperating man did. It was probably just a matter of time before she fell back into bed with him. Just a matter of time before he once again had to face the damage he'd done her.

They'd only spent one night together, before everything went to hell. But they'd made the most of it. They'd performed just about every sexual act imagined over two long years in a shatteringly brief eight-hour period. And revelled in every second of it. They'd blocked out reality any time it threatened to intrude and concentrated solely on bliss. Hunger. Sex. Love. She remembered everything about it, everything about him. His body, his eyes, his voice in her ear. How it felt to have him over her, on her, beneath her, inside her. Those details, those intensely erotic memories carried over into that sterile, alternate reality she'd found herself in. They followed her during the day, haunted her at night. She hadn't wanted them to. And she had.

Memories were all she had left, the only thing anchoring her in time, pulling her back to her place. Wherever that place was. Her place used to be 2008. Her anchor used to be her daughter. She used to be so sure of both. Until she found herself in a world she didn't recognise, a world she no longer belonged to. With grief in her heart and confusion in her mind, she sent Molly away and pursued Gene instead. She pursued him in her waking and asleep hours. He filled her daily therapy sessions and nightly fantasies. He appeared on billboards and in bookshop windows and on DVD cases and in advertisements on the sides of tall red London buses. It was difficult to know who was pursuing whom. But in the end, she had to admit that her place – at least for now – was in 1982. And her anchor was – it had to be – Gene Hunt. From there, with him, she could figure everything out. She could work out what to do and where to go.

He was, after all, the undisputed energy source of his little universe, the towering spire that kept all the lights on and engines running. Her own included. The sheer force of that unyielding will of his dragged her back to the eighties and back into his orbit. And within hours of coming to, she felt more able, more secure, more motivated and sure. Every second in his presence increased her strength and energy. It made sense, in her weakened state, that she longed to be plugged into that powerful electrical force again, to be wholly immersed in Gene Hunt's magnetic energy field. Only when she was could she start to feel whole again. Only once she was would she begin to feel fully healed. Healthy. Herself.

So it was her that reached for him. Just like on that seemingly distant night when he'd turned up at her door, drunk and sad and needy and she'd taken him into her bed with barely a second thought. It would possibly always be her that made the first move and Gene that backed up her move with an instant, avid and hungry response. Alex hadn't thought for a second about how he might react to her scar though. Not in the heat of the moment. He undressed her quickly, as quickly as she undressed him. But he paused when he got to that part of her, when his eyes fell on the slightly purple blemish on the left side of her abdomen. His hands stilled and expression morphed slowly from lust to anguish to regret to contemplation.

He settled on his side on the bed, one palm cupping her hip as his thumb stroked the area around the bullet wound. It still bothered her sometimes. When the weather was cold, when she had to run fast or scale a fence. The muscles around it – much like the two of them – were still recovering from the trauma.

"Know what I did," he mused eventually, speaking to her abdomen rather than meeting her eyes, "on the Isle of Wight?"

She combed her fingers through his hair, murmured a soft, "What?"

Gene didn't answer right away. He kept up his tender stroking, his loaded contemplation of her stomach. Alex breathed in and breathed out. She adjusted her head on the pillow. She was in no rush. She was back with him, lying naked in her bed next to the heat and solidity of his well-remembered body. And nothing did it for her more than talking. Especially when it came to this normally reticent man. She loved him like this. Stripped of his job and title. Stripped all the bravado and chauvinism and flippancy that hid from her who he really was. She loved the few moments she saw him reduced to the complex, caring, decent man he was at his core. To the Gene Hunt only she was allowed to know.

"Ended up in a church," he confessed, before emitting a mordant chuckle, "Can y' believe it? Gene Hunt in the 'ouse of God?"

She hummed, fingers combing his hair and eyes focused lazily on his face. "And what were you seeking there?"

He took a deep breath, let it out. "What all the lost souls are seekin', Bolly..." He glanced up at her, but only briefly. "Peace. Comfort. A little assurance."

She tilted her head, took a deductive leap. "You prayed?"

"Begged was more like it. Bargained. Promised…all sorts o' mad things."

"What kind of things?"

He shrugged and pushed his head into her hand. Her soft, steady stroking seemed to be having a mesmeric effect on him, hypnotising him into revealing all. She kept it up, caressing out his next confidence.

"To do good," he admitted haltingly, "do right. Be…a better man. Then it struck me…" He squeezed her hip and let some humour creep into his tone, "the best chance I 'ad of bein' a better man was lyin' in a hospital bed refusin' to come to."

Her smile widened and mouth opened on a reply. But both smile and reply gave way as Gene moved in to cover the scar on her stomach with his lips. He placed them directly over it, kissed her lightly. He lapped at her with his tongue like a wildcat healing its mate then pressed several kisses around the raised welt where his bullet had entered. Her breathing instantly deepened and her eyes closed over. The area was so sensitised, so alert and primed for pain, that the wet warmth and tender pressure of his mouth bestowed a near-orgasmic sense of pleasure and relief. Her other hand, weak with disbelief and ecstasy, lifted to his head as well, stroked his hair, clutched his head close, communicated her mute but besotted response.

"Sam Tyler," he murmured against her flesh.

Her eyes opened – that was not a name she was expecting to hear just then. Alex gazed down at the fierce man tending to her and waited for him to complete his seemingly out-of-the-blue thought.

"…made me a better copper. You…" he slid between her legs, planted his chin on her stomach and looked up at her, "make me a better man."

She blinked at him, swallowed a little lump in her throat and breathed a taken-aback: " _Well_ …" Hands buried in his hair and eyes on his, she murmured, "That is one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me."

"What I can't figure out…" he went on, a twinkle in his eye as he kissed his way up her body, "is what in hell you get out of it."

She pulled his face up to hers, made him look her in the eye. The pretence of his jest was thin – far too thin to fool her. As with so much of their interaction, playful banter both concealed and revealed some deeper truth that one of them wasn't brave enough to voice. Alex let her gaze drift over his rugged face and lying eyes. Then she whispered, "You can't?"

Gene shrugged his mouth and shirked her gaze. "Not for the life o' me."

She took a breath, moved her hands to his chest and applied gentle pressure. "I get to be with," she told him as she eased him back into a seated position, "the best man I've ever known." She climbed into his lap, settled there with her arms around his neck. "The best," she added, voice still a whisper and lips dipping to kiss one shoulder.

Gene's palms skated up her thighs to her hips. He tugged her a little closer, made their entwinement as close as it could be without joining. One big hand pressed against her lower back and rested there. The other lifted to her face, drew her mouth to his. She'd taught him this position. So maybe she had made him better, in some sense. Maybe she had provoked some marginal improvements. Gene Hunt's sexual repertoire when she first got hold of him was competent. But basic, traditional, limited. The first time they were together, she'd wanted him on top, and told him so. She'd wanted him over her, moving unconstrained between her thighs, looking down on her with those intense blue eyes. God, she'd longed for that, dreamt about that. And it was every bit as fulfilling and pleasurable as she'd imagined. But the balance of power between them couldn't remain the same. As in their professional relationship, it needed to fluctuate and shift if it was to retain its dynamism. So the second time they were together, she was the dominant party, riding him as he lay back and watched. Gene seemed mildly uncomfortable at first, oddly overpowered. But he relaxed into the new position real quick, his eyes raking over body and his hands lifting to play with her breasts.

The last time they made love, on that bleak night back in '82, she guided him into this position. Gene had made some remark about her having a life-long subscription to the bleedin' _Karma Sutra Times_. But he'd shut up as she rose onto her knees and slid slowly down the length of him. She did the same now, taking him in hand and enveloping him in a lingering, savouring sink. She let out a long sigh, adjusted her body in his lap, felt her internal muscles adjust around his hardness and girth. The muscles around her bullet wound clenched, then released. She opened her eyes, looked into his. She loved this position. The intimacy of the constant eye contact, the depth of the connection. She loved that neither party was prone, neither passive. It was an erotic rendering of equals in which nobody led and nobody followed.

Even so, Gene let her set the pace. That was something else she'd taught him. The first time they were together, he had momentarily disappeared into his desire. At one point, he'd gotten so absorbed in his own formidable sex drive that she'd had to touch his face, whisper in his ear: "Wait for me. Let's go there together…." He'd stopped and looked at her, kissed her like a man possessed. But he'd waited for her, slowed his pace. And they'd gone there together. This time, Gene did not seem interested in going there together. He seemed interested in getting her there and making it the most mind-blowing there she'd ever experienced in her life. She wondered briefly if it was meant to be the second half of his uneasy apology, but the thought soon left her mind. Because Gene Hunt was investing all his substantial energy and attention into pursuing her pleasure. He matched whatever pace she sought, thrusting up beneath her in perfect synchronicity. He sucked on her nipples and palmed her arse in just the right way. He whispered dirty words and phrases against her chest and into her neck, telling her how much he wanted her, how much he'd always wanted her, all the things he wanted to do to her, all the things he would do to her and how good they'd make her feel.

She didn't have to teach him that. He figured out for himself how his voice affected her. How it made her squirm in his lap and arch her neck and dig her fingers into the flesh of his back. Alex begged him to keep going, to keep talking to her – not that he needed begging. Gene braced an arm behind him to give his thrusts greater power, gripped her arse with his free hand and urged her onto him, deeper and deeper. When her back arched, he licked the sweat from between her breasts. When little sighing moans began to exit her mouth with every breath, every plunge, he quit telling his dirty stories and just muttered her name over and over again. Not _Bolly_ or _Bols_ or any of its variants. Just _Alex_ – with the occasional _Alexandra_ thrown in. Because Gene Hunt's sexual repertoire might be limited but he was also a very quick learner. A dedicated detective when it came to figuring out what exactly would create her quick and ecstatic release.

He didn't come with her. He milked her orgasm for all it was worth. He did everything he could possibly do to drive her crazy. And it worked. Head flung back and body wracked by spasms, she called his name in a repetitious pant. Gene held her as she shuddered and twisted and swayed. He gave a few final thrusts that jolted the last drops of rapture from her frame. Then lowered her body to the cool sheets and waited for her to float back to earth.

When she opened her eyes, he was looking more than a little pleased with himself and Alex couldn't help emitting a feeble snort. She reached up to stroke his face with her fingers. "How're you feeling about yourself now?"

His smugness noticeably increased. "Oh…" he leaned down to kiss her, murmuring against her mouth, "Better and better."

She would have replied: _Me too_. She could have told him that _now_ she felt whole, _now_ she felt real and present and back. Now, the healing her body and soul required could start because _now_ she felt better. Better than she ever had, in any lifetime. But Gene was kissing her and Gene was slipping inside her again and Gene was with her, in her bed, in her life and in her world. So Alex just kissed him back and concentrated on getting to heaven, this time together.

 _END._


End file.
